As the Government unveiled its SEND reforms today, NASS is raising serious concerns about what’s missing - including meaningful engagement with the special school sector, a credible evidence base and protections for children’s rights.
Instead, we’re faced with proposals where costs appear to drive decisions and where the vital role of special schools risks being sidelined.
Here's our full response and our determination to stand up for the children, families and schools who deserve better.
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Finally - the waiting is over! This morning Government released both the SEND Reforms Consultation document and the Schools White Paper.
We, like so many families, teachers and professionals in the SEND world dearly hoped for the unveiling of a vision for a better system today. Instead, we have policy proposals which, whilst broad on ambition, are low on detail and lacking in sound evidence to indicate their feasibility. Despite Ministers’ assurances to the contrary, we are being offered a system where choice and rights are diminished and where the money spent is an underpinning driver.
Since it came into power, this Government has offered little in the way of genuine engagement with the special school sector. We have long supported the ambition for mainstream schools to be more inclusive and welcoming to a wider range of children. But this cannot come by quietly downgrading the vital role of special schools. The vision set out for special schools – that they should be supported to support mainstream schools – is not wrong, it’s just that there is no real detail or investment in place that would move this from being a long-held wish to a practical reality. There have been missed opportunities to invest in innovation and collaboration that could have brought greater benefits for a wider group of children.
Whilst the Government has not engaged with the Independent Special Schools (ISS) sector, it has not held back in its criticism, signalling an ideological agenda it appears unwilling to reconsider. This is abundantly clear in what has been announced today and last Friday. Policy based on hearsay and opinion is not a sound basis for reform and we call on the Government to demonstrate a sound evidence base before the proposed reforms are introduced.
Whilst Friday’s announcement about a ‘price cap’ was flagged as a means of curbing spending in ISS, today’s consultation document makes it clear that banded funding and capped prices will be in place for all special school and specialist college placements. In the absence of any sense of how these categories will be constructed, nor of the funding that will be attached to them, schools and families are given a headline message that will leave them anxious about whether special schools will be able to afford to provide the support that they know is transformative for children.
The announcement of new powers to restrict the opening or expansion of Independent Special Schools is particularly concerning. These schools exist because the complexity of children’s needs has risen, and the state has been unable to meet demand or specialist capabilities. The independent sector is currently the only part of the system able to create new specialist places quickly and without upfront capital risk to the public purse. Any measure that reduces viability or deters investment risks slowing the creation of much-needed capacity at a time of increasing need. To curtail their ability to respond, while offering no credible plan to expand maintained specialist provision, risks leaving children without a school at all. A policy designed to shrink provision before providing real alternatives is not strategic, it is negligent.
The retreat from individualised funding is, ultimately, a retreat from children themselves. Tailored support is the bedrock on which children’s best possible outcomes and life chances depend. Reducing diverse, complex and varied needs into seven funding bands is not reform, it is simply rationing by another name and does little to reassure us that individual needs will be well met. A core tenet of the 2014 Children and Families Act is being discarded without a shred of evidence that it was wrong. Children are not standardised, and their support must never be treated as if they are.
NASS will not allow the specialist sector, or the children and families that depend on it, to be treated as an afterthought. Our message to the Government is simple: if you want a system that works, start with meaningful engagement with the special school sector rather than attacking the fact that it exists. Stop bending the narrative to fit political objectives. Start grounding policy in evidence and in the lived experiences of families and professionals.
We will continue to gather and amplify the united voice of special schools. Now is the time for the sector to stand together and push back against policies that risk undermining the transformative, life-changing work that happens in our schools every day.
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We will be Unpacking the Schools White Paper/ SEND reforms and what it means for special schools in a webinar with NASS members this Friday, 27th February. NASS members - book your place here: https://members.nasschools.org.uk/events